Scott Bush

It’s New Year’s Eve, so I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on 2007*. I’d have to call it the Year of the Blog. (Well, at least on my blog I will.) I started blogging in earnest in 2007, though I had a couple of cool posts back in 2005 and 2006 from an earlier—and aborted—blog incarnation.

Here are some stats from the YotB:

• 110 Posts Were Posted.
• 5 Pages Were Created.
• 57 Comments Were Posted.
• 21 Different Nicknames Were Represented In The Comments.
• 11 Links Were Added.

One hundred and ten posts! That’s around one every three or so days. Not bad. Thanks to all who’ve bothered to read them. Hope they were enjoyable. I’ll keep going in 2008, as I’ve found blogging gives me a chance to write, which I enjoy, and spout off about some crazy things, which I enjoy more.

I’ve also become a better blog reader, too. It’s great keeping up with friend’s via their blogs (though nothing beats a cup of coffee and actually spending time together). Check out my blog roll for a list of others’ blogs I read.

Have a happy and safe New Year!

* <shameless plug>If you want a broader and more detailed reflection, check out CrystalAndScott.com and read our Holiday Report.</shameless plug>

As you may have read elsewhere on teh Intarwebs, we focused on homemade gifts this year. I’m pleased to report that our friends and family did as well. In addition to receiving a nice jar of hand-mixed chai tea leaves, brownies, a family tree, and hand-drawn calendar (from my 8-year-old neice), I received one of the best presents ever.

A wallet.

Not just any wallet: a duct-tape wallet. Not just any duct-tape wallet: an Apple duct-tape wallet. My sister-in-law and her boyfriend Magic Joe produced a present that exactly captured me. I love duct-tape wallets (I’m on my fourth one in as many years) and I sure love Apple. Combining the two into one handmade gift was sure appreciated. (They also made a great checkbook cozy for my wife: karate style!)

Thanks to everyone for their lovely and thoughtful gifts this year. And for not going nuts… this was the first year in a while in which the level of present-giving felt appropriate, not gluttonous.

Call me old fashioned, but isn’t adultery supposed to be a Bad Thing? Let’s assume that it is for the sake of argument that it is (and if you disagree, I’d be interested in knowing why). With that modest standard agreed upon, take a look at this Match.com ad I saw on some (non-adultery-advocating) website. (Red oval is mine, not part of the ad.)

Promoting marital infidelity certainly isn’t a hook I’d choose to promote my business. But I’m not the marketing director at Match.com, who apparently did choose adultery as the basis of one of their campaigns. I’ve searched for the phrase “It’s okay to look” but all I found were people’s blogs talking about their dates (and one YouTube video of a cat). It seems I’m the only one who finds this odd.

Sure, I know that Match.com would tell you that it’s geared toward single people who are uncomfortable with the idea of online dating because to some it carries with it a stigma that you can’t get a “real” date. (I don’t think that’s the case at all, personally. We shop, buy, pay bills, read news, and in some cases even vote online; why not meet people? Beats shouting at someone over loud music at a club, right?) Telling these people that it’s okay to look gets them on the site with the mindset they’re just seeing what’s there. Next thing they know they’re signed up and participating–the ad did its job.

But that’s why the ad is insidious: its got that double meaning. Suppose you’re in a committed relationship, or even married, but unhappy. Rather than dealing with the root causes of that unhappiness, you decide it’s “okay to look” at singles on Match.com. I’m the first person to advocate for personal responsibility and that an ad cannot make you do anything you wouldn’t want to do anyway, but still. When I read that I see the marketers sitting around a conference table espousing the extra benefit of the phrase appealing to dissatisfied married people.

Am I reading too much into this? Probably. What do you think?

‘Tis the season, right? What does that mean to you? To me it means it’s the season to care for one another, help those less fortunate than ourselves (even more than the other 10 months of the year), and spend time celebrating the beauty of the wintertime, and share the company of friends and family. Cliché? Maybe. But not if you mean it and put it into practice.

This year we’re opting out of commercial Christmas. A catchy turn-of-phrase that describes the way we’re putting our idea of “’tis the season” into practice. Rather than take part in the shopping madness (like santa’s little elves at left) and buying many “things” for people because it’s just what we’ve always done, we took a different approach: making a gift for each person on our list.

Sure, there’s things you can buy that are meaningful: donations in their names to charities; practical gifts like gas cards or household goods; and experiences like gift cards to day spas or peticures. We’ve done that for the past few years (and will again in the future, I’m sure) but this year we’re taking a stand against rampant consumerism.

It’s interesting how difficult it is remain true to this principle. We talk about how we feel like we’re not getting enough stuff for our family and friends. It’s not that a hand-made gift doesn’t take effort and some money. But after years of buying a “big present” for everyone, along with lots of “stocking stuffers,” it’s hard to feel that the item we thought about, bought materials/ingredients for, worked for days to complete, and wrapped is enough. Kinda proves the point about our consumer culture running rampant.

So, take a look at your habits this year (or next, as it is only a week or so until Christmas and much of the shopping is already done) and see whether the person you’re buying for really needs it. We certainly don’t expect much and have encouraged our family not to “go nuts” on us; we’d appreciate any small gift or card and be content that it was given as acknowledgment of love and friendship. Unless you’re buying us iPhones; we really want those ;-)

Crystal wrote about this topic on our blog, www.CrystalAndScott.com. Check it out, if you’re not a member of a retail marketing federation or something who believes this sort of thinking is the end of world.

Recently I’ve experienced some tingling and discomfort in my right hand. Nothing to be alarmed about, as it’s happened to me periodically over the years. Occasionally I’ll be woken by a very intense pins-and-needles/aches in my hands, but that’s probably just from fighting all the dream ninjas. But I mentioned it to a guy who gives us company-subsidized massages and he suggested I move my mouse from the right to the left side of my keyboard. So I did.
It’s surprising how good I am at it. Now, I’m no southpaw; I can barely scratch out my own name left handed. But I can type QWERT, ASDFG, and ZXCVB just fine (not to mention 12345) so I guess it’s not surprising that after only a week I’m managing decently. I was told it’d take two weeks before I’d be proficient; perhaps I’m ahead of the curve? (On my PowerBook of course I’m still relying on my right hand when “trackpadding,” which is only slightly more of a bastardization than the term “mousing.”)

Last time I checked, when you wanted a book you bought or borrowed one. You never rented one. You didn’t have to; that’s what the library was for. So I had to check the date when I came across a story about Paperspine in the business section of the Seattle P.I. a few days back—it had to be April Fool’s Day. But it wasn’t and this story is true: you can see it yourself.

Touted as the “Netflix for books” by the witless writer, the story describes how a Microsoft project manager on leave started an online book rental company. For between $10 and $25 a month you can have books delivered to you in the mail, returned the same way in a postage-paid mailer when you’re done. I kept reading, looking for the bit where the writer would point out you can get books for free at the library. To my astonishment, the L-word was never mentioned. Here’s a scenario I imagined:

Scene: a plush corner office in a downtown high rise. A venture capitalist in a powersuit sits at his desk looking over a one-page business plan. Dustin Hubbard, more casually dressed (he worked at Microsoft, after all) is shown in.

VC - “Mr. Hubbard, thanks for coming in. I normally wouldn’t take the time to meet with you but I simply had to know whether this” (he shakes the paper in front of him) “is true.”

H - “Oh yes! It’s like Netflix, but for books! You can chose online, then we send–”

VC - “Yes, yes, I read it. I’m not an idiot; I know how it would work. Tell me, who’s your competition?”

H - “Well, the online booksellers, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, are near our space but they’re not the primary competition. We feel that traditional brick-and-mortar booksellers are the real competition, but we have plans to—”

VC - “Wait, wait, wait. What about libraries. You can go in and get books for free, keep’em for weeks. Doesn’t cost a cent. Why would someone actually pay a monthly fee to get what they can have for free? Actually, they already pay for it through taxes… why would they pay twice for books?”

H - “Uh… well, um, you see… in today’s busy world some people… like, uh, soccer moms and executives, see… they can’t get to libraries. That’s it. So, they pay a small fee for the convenience of getting books delivered. It’s a great idea! Like printing money!”

You can see my point. Sure, you could argue that it’s beneficial to not have to go to the library and browse, or that it’s convenient to choose books on a website when a library might not be open. But libraries are a cornerstone of our democratic society, delivering information to everyone equally. Not to mention the community that’s fostered at a library: classes, plays, meetings, etc. If your life is so busy you can’t stop by the library to check out a few books then how in the hell are you going to find time to read them, even if they do come in the mail?

This is an example of what’s wrong with (some) people today. They’d rather drop $20 a month for the privilege to have rented books on their nightstands than to, I don’t know, say give $20 a month to literacy programs. I’m all for entrepreneurial endeavors but I just can’t get behind this one. Oh, and realized that this hare-brained idea has been tried before (apparently with some success) at bookswim.com and booksfree.com.